


and the world could burn

by dustybunnyplots (nicrt)



Category: Kamen Rider Zi-O
Genre: Dark, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23144119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicrt/pseuds/dustybunnyplots
Summary: sougo tokiwa only had dreams. tsukasa kadoya had anything but hope.the world could burn and it would be their fault.but even in hell, they'd find each other.
Relationships: Kadoya Tsukasa/Tokiwa Sougo
Kudos: 1





	1. The Dancer

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Understandably, Sougo is younger in canon, compared to Tsukasa. For this fic (and for ethics), I'm tweaking the ages of the characters. The relationship would also span over the years, so it would not be a romantic/sexual relationship of any kind in the beginning. Regardless, this is fiction. Enjoy it just as much as you can discern it from reality.

The Arts, in whatever form one took it for, wasn't ever to be underestimated, he'd been told. It was a path one had to be built into, a dream one had to strive for; an undying, passionate flame at heart, that demanded sacrifices of the highest degree. Sougo had paid in blood, sweat, and tears over the years to reach where he was at now.

The scars on his legs looked ugly. The sweat on his brow blinded him. The wet patches on the floor were not tears. He inhaled once, trying to calm his rapid heart beating. Inhaled again, when it felt like his lungs weren't full of air enough. Inhaled again, because he wasn't sure if the fog in his head was real or not. The music paused, the notes stilling in mid-air. Woz, he knew, ever patient, would wait for him to finish.

When it felt like he wasn't breathing fire and like his eyes were not burning, he ignored the fog in his mind. Stood straight, muscles instantly tensing into position. What the mind cannot remember, the body will. The music started. The score played. The performance his master, himself a marionette on strings.

And so, Sougo danced.


	2. The Stranger

Keito and Alpina often worried for him. Over how far he seemed to push himself to his limits, breaking skin or bone to perfect his performance. They didn't trust him enough not to lose himself in his art. They trusted Woz even less, because the older student often enabled his tendency to overwork himself.

It wasn't like Sougo didn't _know_ he was overworking. Of course he knew. His body was straining, his mind breaking, his heart faltering. But what could he do? This was his life. His chosen path. He had to stick to it, crawl all the way through it, if he must.

So he smiled at them, said things like, "Don't be silly! I've been doing this for years. I know how to take care of myself."

They both gave him a disgruntled look each; although Keito looked ready to flip him over rather than just make a pointedly disappointed face like Alpina did.

His uncle came to his rescue then, happily serving them dinner. All three dug into it happily, Sougo and Keito with more gusto than an ordinary high school teenager should. Tonight, it was just the three of them. Heure and Aura were off at cram school again, while the Woz twins had business to attend elsewhere.

Sougo looked up from his food, in time to see Alpina failing at keeping a straight face while Keito tried unsuccessfully to wipe the rice off his cheek with his tongue. His uncle held no reservation and laughed loudly at the debacle. Watching the scene, Sougo's heart clenched. In a way, he missed these moments. The ones he spent between dreaming of stage lights and standing ovations and working towards that dream through sheer will power. The moments when he'd listen to Heure and Ora bicker over something or other, when he'd cheer for Keito claim another medal and title in his journey through judo; when he could just listen to the twins sass the other out, and when he and Alpina would just talk about everything out there and nothing at all.

But he was so close. So close to stepping onto a stage to wow a crowd of a thousand, to finish a performance with finesse and grace, to make his friends and family proud. All he had to do was...follow through.

The front door of their humble abode opened, the bell chiming as it did. His uncle called over, saying that they were closed. A voice answered, that if he could spare a bit of time anyways and help him out. This voice held the lilt of arrogance the twins often had and the surety of the confident like Keito. And because his uncle, kind all the time and a pushover for most of it too, relented and beckoned the customer to his counter.

He walked with grace, the way the Tsukuyomis did, although with a jump in his half-steps. Sougo watched. The way he wasted no movements at all, walking forward to his uncle. A camera, vintage in design like many others in the shop but new in a way one could tell from how _pink_ it was, was placed on the counter top. Words were exchanged. Sougo only caught key phrases like 'fix', 'broken', and 'time'. Sougo watched. The way the black outfit clung onto this stranger's form like fitted skin, the way light brown tufts of hair were mussed effortlessly like a crown that belonged. The way his fingers moved, with purpose but almost lazily.

Sougo recognised then, that this man moved through life without the effort of the dreamers. But this man, from the tension in his shoulders and the tightness in his voice, lived in the world of the jaded.

"Sougo?" His name being called startled him. He glanced over at his uncle, a curious expression on his face.

"Hmm?" He said in reply, but he looks back over to the stranger.

The stranger's pupils were of the darker shades, black enough under the dim light. But they carried a challenge, a flash of something rebellious, when Sougo's gaze locked with his. And then it disappeared, shuttered away by a lazy blink.

The stranger turned away first. "I'll come back again soon then," he said and promptly strutted out the door. His uncle sighed and shuffled back to the table. Keito called out to him, rudely saying 'oi, eat up, twig'. Tsukuyomi reached out with a hand to put it atop of one of his; balled tightly into a fist, nails digging deep into skin.

Sougo didn't know why. But he hated this stranger already.


End file.
